Big hairy social issues and other stuff

The Family Royal….

Click, tap, clack, tap…tap……schwzing……………

“Dad, it’s 3 in the morning, what the heck are you doing?”

It really was 3 in the morning – a late December evening that had turned into morning, the day of my parents famous Holiday Party. Preparations were underway which included, on this morning, the percussive rhythmic noise of the old family Royal typewriter.

My father replied – “its moydasheva!” The grin on his face was reminiscent of a mischievous young boy caught with his hands in the cookie jar. The look on my face was one of utter confusion – what was moydasheva? As the military nomadic Myrick clan, we knew several languages from our travels abroad, our diverse circle of friends and our various educational experiences but this did not seem familiar at all.

I looked over at my Mom and she too looked just as perplexed. “Moydasheva? Huh?”

My father continued to repeat the word and each time the pronunciation was punctuated with both frustration and glee – “Moy-da-she-va”, you know “Moydasheva”. At this point I think my dad was laughing and we were giggling along.

At 3:00 o’clock on a Sunday morning 12 hours into cleaning and preparing a house for a grand holiday party, let’s just say he could have said “dust” and we would all be in tears with laughter. But there we were giggling about some weird word. Secretly, I thought my father was holding out on all of the languages he knew and was sharing some joke in Yiddish!

Who knew? Well he didn’t and he wasn’t speaking Yiddish or anything else for that matter.

I finally stopped giggling long enough to ask him “what exactly is – Moy-da-she-va?”

His reply: “You know that show, the one on TV with the female writer that opens with words on a piece of paper inserted in a typewriter”. Clearly he gets it that we have no clue as to what he is talking about because his response is met with blank stares from my mother and me.

He points to the paper coming out of the typewriter and says again now articulating every letter and syllable s-l-o-w-l-y: “MOY- DA- SHE-VA”. My mom and I followed his pointing finger, looked at the paper in the typewriter that read “Murder”. Simultaneously we both shrieked “Oh, ….. ‘Murder She Wrote’!”

My father swore that he was saying that all along; but alas no. My dad heard himself saying “Murder She Wrote” but what came out of his mouth had succumbed to the effects of no sleep better known as “the 3 am communications effect”…..Moydasheva.

But not to worry, now we have a new holiday greeting to include on our cards to our friends: “Moydasheva!” (Sometimes we add Y’all at the end of the greeting as in “Moydasheva Y’all!”).

And only we know what it means and our friends, well they think we speak Yiddish.

Note-

The Royal typewriter was used by my aunt, then my mom, then my cousin, then my brother to write papers in college or high school. For my aunt and mother- college was something many women of color did not have access to due to racism, yet both used that typewriter in college graduating with several degrees. They paved the way for all of us that followed, using that typewriter in one way or another, to complete our college degrees as well. When I miss them, or when life is hard and I am struggling to push through the pain, sorrow, frustrations, anger or sheer sadness, I can access their spirit and strength through these memories.

The Royal typewriter sits atop a small writing desk in my father’s library just as it has these many years after the preparation for the family annual holiday party. Though long faded, the paper with the one word “murder”, still remains steadfastly waiting for the next word to be typed; the next story to be told; the next memory to be stored.